Patagonia - Argentina (2)

As promised, some more pictures from the Patagonia trip in January 2007.
After spending some relaxing days in Bariloche, playing golf, enjoying the famous chocolate, swimming, sightseeing & indulging in food & argentinian wine, we continued our trip to Ushuaia, the most southern city of the world.

 Arriving at Ushuaia...

Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego, Spanish for "Land of Fire", is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of 48,100 km² (18,572 sq mi), and a group of smaller islands including Cape Horn. Initially discovered by Ferdinand Magellan's expedition in 1520, the islands were not settled by people of European descent until the second half of the 19th century at the height of the sheep farming and gold rush booms.

 

 A cruise on the Beagle Channel

The Beagle Channel is a strait separating islands of the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago, in extreme southern South America. It separates Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego from the islands Nueva, Picton, Navarino, Hoste, Londonderry, Stewart Islands and other smaller to the south. Its eastern portion is part of the border between Chile and Argentina, but the western part is completely within Chile. The west end is the Darwin Sound and the east end is Nueva Island.
The Beagle Channel, the Straits of Magellan to the north, and the open ocean Drake Passage to the south are the three navigable passages around South America between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. The Beagle Channel and the Straits of Magellan are both very narrow passages which severely limit the size and types of ships that can safely use them, hence, most commercial shipping is through the Drake Passage.
The Beagle Channel is about 240 kilometres long and is about 5 kilometres wide at its narrowest point. To the west the Darwin Sound connects it to the Pacific Ocean. The biggest settlement on the channel is Ushuaia in Argentina followed by Puerto Williams in Chile, two of the southernmost settlements of the world.

 The fauna

   Funny guy...

   In the Martime Museum

Down Town Ushuaia

Seeing al these pictures surely brings me in the holiday mood... luckily we have a skibreak coming up (something complety different!)... off to Austria in a couple of weeks!

Bisous,